The FBI officials investigating Hillary Clinton’s email server wrote that House Speaker Paul Ryan is a “jerk,” that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell looks like a turtle, that Oversight Committee chairman Trey Gowdy is a “dick,” and that newscaster Chris Wallace is a “turd.”
And as for former FBI Director James Comey: “Jim’s too blindly boyscoutish.”
Those comments come from 500 pages of texts released Wednesday by Senate investigators.
In the texts, agent Peter Strzok and his mistress, lawyer Lisa Page, also wrote that Congress is “contemptible.”
The Oversight Committee held a hearing Sept. 12 about “Classifications and Redactions in the FBI’s investigative file” on the Clinton case. Jason Herring, acting assistant director for Congressional Affairs of the FBI, was there to provide answers, while Page and Strzok watched.
Page appeared to fault the chairman of the oversight committee for asking “investigative questions” and indicated that Herring was supposed to have a simple “script” — of refusing to answer.
“Gowdy is being a total dick. All investigative questions. And Jason isn’t always stricking to the script on ‘I’m not answering that,’” she wrote. “Gowdy is really starting to piss me off,” she previously noted.
During the third presidential debate, Oct. 20, 2016, Strzok said, “I am riled up. Trump is a fucking idiot, is unable to provide a coherent answer… WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO OUR COUNTRY, LIS?!?!?!”
“Chris Wallace is a turd,” he added.
“Trump is a disaster. I have no idea how destabilizing his presidency would be,” Page said.
“Mitch McConnell always reminds me of a turtle,” Page wrote July 20, 2016.
Trump secures major victory as Senate Republicans pass $1.5 trillion tax cut bill despite Democrats warning they’ll ‘rue this day’ and protesters screaming ‘don’t kill us’ – paving the way for a final House vote today after earlier hiccup
The Senate passed a $1.5 trillion tax cut early in the early hours of Wednesday
Vote was along strict party lines. Only GOP Sen. John McCain was absent
The House earlier passed the tax cut by a vote of 227-203 but two provisions fell foul of parliamentary test meaning they have to vote again on Wednesday
President Donald Trump fired off a pair of tweets in the morning
Mike Pence described it as a ‘historic win for the American people’
The Senate passed the GOP’s $1.5 trillion tax cut early Wednesday morning, leaving just one technical hurdle and President Trump’s signature as the final steps before the president’s top legislative priority becomes reality.
There was little last-minute drama in the Senate where the final tally was 51-48 – hardly different from the original version that cleared the Senate earlier this month.
Not a single Democrat voted for it, just as none in the House voted for a similar bill earlier on Tuesday.
Moments after the measure passed, Trump was quick to voice his approval and said if the House succeeds in a final re-vote Wednesday morning, there will be a White House news conference at 1:00 p.m.
‘The United States Senate just passed the biggest in history Tax Cut and Reform Bill,’ he tweeted just after 1:00 in the morning. ‘Terrible Individual Mandate (ObamaCare)Repealed. Goes to the House tomorrow morning for final vote.’
House Speaker Paul Ryan tweeted: ‘Great news. The Senate just passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. After years of work, we are going to enact the most sweeping, pro-growth overhaul of our tax code in a generation.’
A wave of protesters provided one of the biggest bursts of emotion. One small group yelled out ‘Kill the bill, don’t kill us!’ as the final vote was being taken.
‘The Sergeant at Arms will restore order in the gallery,’ said Vice President Mike Pence, who was presiding over the chamber.
Pence’s appearance was a flourish that put him in the spotlight – though party leaders knew in advance his potential tie-breaking vote was not needed.
One protester yelled at GOP Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, ‘Have you no shame?’
Flake voted for the bill, weeks after warning colleagues against complicity with Trump.
If we can’t sell this to the American people I think we ought to go into another line of work
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
Moments after the decision, far-left Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders tweeted: ‘Senate Republicans just passed their tax reform bill. What an utter disgrace.’
Before the vote, as the debate stretched toward midnight, Pence tweeted out a photo of himself huddling with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Trump economic advisor Gary Cohn.
The House still had to sort through one legislative hiccup – after Democrats raised a procedural objection to minor provisions in the bill that the Senate parliamentarian ruled were not allowable.
The parliamentary ruling, which was sustained after Republicans failed to strike it down, requires the House to re-vote Wednesday morning so that the House and Senate versions are identical and President Trump can sign it.
‘After eight straight years of slow growth and under-performance, America is ready to take off,’ said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky at a press conference after passage.
Asked about a need to ‘sell’ the bill, McConnell said: ‘If we can’t sell this to the American people I think we ought to go into another line of work.’
Ryan made the rounds on Wednesday morning’s TV shows, saying on CBS that Democratic detractors predicting tax increases for the middle class are dead wrong.
‘When people see their paychecks getting bigger in February because withholding tables have adjusted to reflect their tax cuts, when businesses are keeping more of what they earn, when they can write off their expensing and investment in their businesses, and hire more people, that’s going to change its popularity. I am convinced,’ he said.
‘So I think there’s just tons of confusion out there as to what this does or doesn’t do. A lot of people think it’s going to raise their taxes, when every income tax group on average gets a tax cut. So the proof is in the pudding, and I think the results will speak for themselves.’
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, the top Democrat in the upper chamber of Congress, ripped the measure as as ‘sloppy’ and ‘as partisan as the process used to draft it.’
He warned his colleagues: ‘Vote no. Otherwise, I believe the entire Republican Party, and each of you, will come to rue this day.’
Schumer called for order during his floor speech and barked at colleagues who were talking rather than listening.
‘This is serious stuff. We believe you’re messing up America. You could pay attention for a couple of minutes,’ the New York Democrat grumbled.
Another Democrat, Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio, said Wednesday morning on CNN that while ‘a few people are going to get some crumbs’ in the form of tax relief, ‘the wealthiest people in the country are going to get all of the benefits here.’
‘It is going to be a great Christmas for the big corporations who are sitting on more cash than they’ve ever had in their lives,’ he groused.
Wavering senators removed most of the drama Tuesday night by announcing their support in advance. Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, who Trump mocked as ‘little Bob’ during an earlier feud, flipped from opposing the earlier version to supporting the final conference report that cleared the Senate Tuesday night.
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine also tipped her hand hours before the vote, saying she would back the bill.
Sen. John McCain, who provided a dramatic thumbs-down to the GOP’s Obamacare repeal bill months ago, is recovering at home from his treatment for brain cancer and didn’t vote Tuesday night.
He had announced his backing for an earlier version of the tax cut.
The hours-long debate Tuesday was mostly kabuki theater.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch bemoaned the lack of Democratic support – although leaders decided to move the bill through procedures that allowed them to circumvent Democrats and pass it by a simple majority vote.
‘Where is this bipartisanship that this country desperately needs?’ asked Hatch. ‘Our tax policy is for the birds,’ he added.
Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon called the final bill an ‘abomination’ as well as ‘the biggest bank heist – not just in American history but in the history of the world.’
As the hours drew on, senators continued to inveigh one way or the other to a mostly empty chamber but with an eye toward C-Span and cable audiences.
‘Not a single Democrat would break from party discipline,’ complained Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. ‘Why? Because they are so united in their rage at President Trump,’ the president’s former primary rival said.
He said families would see benefits in their pay stubs within weeks.
Democrats saw their hopes dashed of scoring another dramatic defeat of a GOP initiative, after seeing the Obamacare repeal tank earlier this year.
With passage all but assured, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the leading Democrat on the Finance Committee, turned his focus to future battles, warning Americans that Republicans would be ‘coming for your Social Security and Medicare before you take you Christmas tree down.’
Now, all that is left for the House to do is vote again following an earlier technical parliamentary error.
Speaker Ryan, who earlier said ‘this is a day I’ve been looking forward to for a long time’, will get to relive his dream Wednesday, because a few minor provisions in the House bill were out of order.
That would require another procedural motion to ensure both chambers are passing identical measures.
In that case, the House would meet at 9am Wednesday and then vote.
The rule prevents certain types of legislating in what is nominally a revenue bill – crammed into a special procedure that only requires a simple majority to pass to avoid having to negotiate with Democrats.
There are a ‘couple little glitches,’ Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told Fox News Tuesday night, but they are only ‘minor adjustments.’
One of the out-of-order provisions lets people save in tax-deferred 529 plans to home school their kids, Politico reported. Another may deal with a college’s exemption from an endowment tax.
It is up to Democrats or any senator to raise an objection to force a ruling.
A Senate leadership aide downplayed the hiccup in the final stretch.
‘No one’s fault. They’re tiny provisions that don’t affect the overall bill. These small provisions were all that Dems could find. The House will pass again,’ the aide said.
An amendment by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz made it into the final conference report, allowing parents to withdraw up to $10,000 from tax-deferred 529 college savings plans for home schooling their kids at a younger age.
The plans could now be used for K-12 elementary and secondary tuition, including for home-schooling.
Aides were still scrambling to figure out how the technical ruling would affect the legislation.
Cruz touted the amendment on his Senate and campaign web site.
‘By expanding choice for parents and opportunities for children, we have prioritized the education of the next generation of Americans,’ Cruz said on the Senate floor when the amendment passed on a tie vote with an assist from Vice President Mike Pence.
A Senate GOP aide told DailyMail.com the only portion likely to be knocked out involved home schooling – not the bulk of the amendment for the first time making 529s eligible for K-12 schools including private or parochial schools.
In states that define home-schooling as a type of private school, it is possible that funding could still be eligible.
In another blow, of the PR variety, Senate Democrats objected to the pleasing name Republicans attached to the bill, the so-called short title, the ‘The Tax Cuts And Jobs Act.’
WHAT’S IN THE FINAL TAX BILL?
Top income tax bracket has dropped to 37 per cent from 39.6 per cent
Other brackets are zero, 12, 22, 24, 32 and 35 per cent
‘Standard’ deduction for non-itemizers nearly doubles
Interest is deductible only on the first $750,000 of new home mortgages
Only individuals making more than $500,000 and couples earning $600,000 are in the top bracket
Corporate tax rates drop from 35 per cent to 21 per cent
Deduction for medical expenses and student loan interest and an exemption for graduate school tuition waivers
Ends Obamacare tax penalty for failing to buy health insurance
Doubles child tax credit to $2,000 for families earning up to $400,000
$1,400 of child credit is refundable even for families that don’t pay any income tax
Doubles estate tax exemption to the first $11.2 million of inheritances
Opens a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling
‘Pass-through’ corporations can deduct 20 per cent of income
Elimination of corporate Alternative Minimum Tax
No repeal of Johnson Amendment barring churches and religious organizations from election activity
American Majority founder Ned Ryun talked about Roy Moore and the Alabama Senate race with Breitbart News Executive Chairman Steve Bannon and SiriusXM host Raheem Kassam on Friday’s Breitbart News Daily, broadcast live from the Restoration Weekend event.
Bannon asked Ryun about celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred’s involvement in the Roy Moore case, representing a woman who accuses Moore of assaulting her in 1977 when she was 16 years old.
Ryan said Allred is “basically a human vulture when you look back at some of the things she’s been involved in.”
“Remember the incident with Arnold Schwarzenegger?” Ryun asked. “She brought all these women in front of him, said they’re going to sue, they’re going to file suit against Schwarzenegger. Guess what? After the election, absolutely nothing happened.”
“I think a real turning point was that press conference when they pulled out the yearbook and the signature,” he said of Allred’s entry into the Moore controversy, referring to an interview with MSNBC’s Katy Tur where Allred did not come off well.
Ryun said this interview demonstrated that the best way to respond to sensational allegations is to “just throw facts back at them.”
“I’m remembering clearly, you remember this, the incident where I just brought up the Clinton Foundation, Uranium One. This is back in the spring. Couldn’t believe the reaction,” he said.
“Back to Alabama, we were talking in the break about this poll. This is John Kerry’s pollster who did this poll that just came out recently,” Ryun said, referring to a Fox News poll that showed Democrat Doug Jones with an eight-point lead over Republican Roy Moore.
“Why is Fox News using John Kerry’s pollster?” Bannon asked incredulously.
“Because John Kerry’s pollster has an agreement with the other company, Schoen Company, which is Karl Rove’s,” Kassam replied.
Ryun cited an observation the late Christopher Hitchens made in 1992, that “polls these days are not made to truly understand public opinion, but they’re meant to shape public opinion; they’re used as a weapon now.”
(As Kassam pointed out, Hitchens’ poetic way of phrasing this was to say that “opinion polling was born out of a struggle not to discover the public mind, but to master it,” and, in particular, to develop a weapon against organized-labor populism.)
“Pull all the Band-Aids off in D.C., and I think that at the end of the day, you’re going to see some things that will undermine the corrupt consultant class as the Band-Aids get ripped off on this,” Ryun predicted. “I think people need to start asking about behavior at the party committees. It’s time that we actually say, ‘Let’s have an honest conversation, a wide variety of thoughts.’”
Bannon interpreted this to mean that Ryun was accusing the D.C. “consultant class” of concealing a good deal of inappropriate behavior toward women.
“That’s what I am implying,” Ryun replied. “I think this might, ultimately, even though there are going to be some interesting moments moving forward, I think this will be a good thing for the populist movement.”
Ryun said there was no doubt in his mind that the allegations against Moore were part of an “organized hit,” as Bannon put it.
“I’ve been in D.C. almost 20 years. And, again, I don’t have hard proof, and I will say this clearly: I do not have hard proof, but I strongly suspect it’s a very short list of people, all who are associated with Mitch McConnell – whether it’s Josh Holmes, whether it’s Karl Rove, might even be Steven Law – I don’t know, but I strongly, strongly suspect somebody out of the McConnell camp planted the story.”
“It was planted. This came with the blessing of Mitch McConnell at some point, that he was going to take a political shot at Roy Moore,” he declared.
Bannon asked for Ryun’s thoughts on Restoration Weekend and his role as a presenter at the event.
“It’s so important. You bring together just some great people – obviously yourself, Raheem; you’re going to have Congressman Devin Nunes as the keynote speaker. You’ll be speaking, I know, later today,” Ryun replied. “It’s just great where people come from all over the country, spend three days together, be able to interact with people like you and like Devin Nunes.”
“I’m really excited to introduce Congressman Nunes,” he added. “He has been the rock star on unmasking Fusion. So I’m excited to be here. He’s a rising star. Keep an eye on him. You know, the thing is, he took it on the chin this spring. They were going after him, undermining his credibility. He didn’t stop.”
Help! I’m an old black man trapped in a little white boy’s body
Mitch McConnell’s Former Chief of Staff Calls Steve Bannon a ‘White Supremacist’
Mitch McConnell’s former chief of staff Josh Holmes grew increasingly desperate to stop the rising wave of populist candidates challenging the Senate Republican leadership by calling former White House chief strategist and Breitbart News executive chairman Steve Bannon a “white supremacist.”
Holmes said, “In 2018 we ought to revisit this question and find out if these people are still happy to be associated with Bannon. When you’re facing voters, I’d take one of the most successful majority leaders in history over a white supremacist any day.”
Holmes’ and the establishment Republicans’ influence in the 2018 Senate election continues to fade. Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley, whom Holmes’ labeled as their first choice for the 2018 midterm election, refuses to endorse Mitch McConnell for majority leader.
“He was our No. 1 recruit of the cycle,” Holmes charged. “We worked our tail off to recruit Josh Hawley.”
Hawley’s spokesman, Scott Paradise, responded in an email questioning whether Hawley would back McConnell.
“The Senate is broken and failing the people of Missouri,” Paradise said.
“Josh is running because he is not willing to tolerate the failure of the D.C. establishment any longer,” Paradise added. “He won’t tolerate Claire McCaskill’s failure. And he won’t tolerate Republican failure, either.”
Montana state auditor Matt Rosendale recently tweeted a picture with Steve Bannon and said that he will end the “D.C. status quo.”
Nearly two dozen Senate Republican candidates refused to openly back Mitch McConnell for majority leader.
Holmes’ statement echoed Sen. Sherrod Brown’s (D-OH) recent comments. Brown also called Bannon a “white supremacist.”
Andy Surabian, a former White House adviser and now a senior adviser to the pro-Trump super PAC Great America Alliance, said, “No amount of smearing can change the fact that not a single U.S. Senate candidate was willing to go on the record and say that they supported Mitch McConnell for Majority Leader. Everyone can see right through the clearly desperate, unfounded and pathetic attacks coming from McConnell Incorporated.”
Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore pulled out a handgun during a campaign rally Monday night.
During the rally — which came just hours ahead of the Republican primary runoff Tuesday — Moore said he dealt with nearly three months of negative ads, ABC News reported.
“Ads that were completely false. That I don’t believe in the Second Amendment,” Moore, a former state Supreme Court chief justice, said.
He then turned and pulled out a handgun, while saying: “I believe in the Second Amendment.”
The comment was met with cheers from the audience.
Moore headed into Election Day leading in polls over Sen. Luther Strange (R-Ala.), who has the backing of President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
Strange’s allies had poured nearly $11 million into the race as of Friday, and Strange’s campaign organization has outspent Moore by more than 300 percent.
The winner of the Tuesday runoff election will face Democrat Doug Jones in the December general election as Republican try to keep the seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Trump on Monday said that if Alabama voters elected Moore, Democrats would win the general election for the seat.
Conservatives figures like 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin and former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon have backed Moore as an anti-establishment Republican.
Shock Poll: McConnell, Ryan Less Popular Than Antifa
Confidence in GOP congressional leadership reaches dismal new low, sinks beneath left-wing extremists
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan are now viewed as ineffective and unpopular by such a wide swath of the American electorate that they poll somewhere below the left-wing extremist group Antifa.
A recent survey taken by McLaughlin & Associates in conjunction with the Center for Security Policy and the Eagle Forum, released Thursday, revealed that nearly two-thirds of voters believe that the time has come for new leadership in Congress.
A paltry 15 percent of those polled said “no” when asked if it is “time for new Republican leadership in Congress, which would mean replacing Senate Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker Paul Ryan.” Nearly a quarter of respondents, 22 percent, were uncertain. A whopping 63 percent supported the notion of dumping the pair of GOP leaders.
But while only 15 percent of Americans appear to retain confidence in McConnell and Ryan, 21 percent of those McLaughlin polled said they supported Antifa.
One conservative activist said GOP leaders in Congress can repair their numbers by beginning to make successful progress on the agenda of President Donald Trump.
“While Antifa has nowhere to go but down, as political violence is unacceptable in modern American society, the good news for Ryan and McConnell is that they have a pathway ahead,” said Rick Manning, president of Americans for Limited Government.
Manning continued: “And that is by enacting the Trump agenda they ran on: repealing Obamacare, reining in big government, cutting taxes, and building the wall that was promised to be delivered with Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress.”
The road to popularity is steep — especially for McConnell. A Harvard-Harris poll released late August revealed that McConnell had the lowest favorability rating of any high-profile American politician at the time, at only 19 percent, while a Public Policy Polling survey released the same week showed McConnell with only an 18 percent job approval rating in his home state of Kentucky.
“Obviously Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell aren’t comparable to Antifa. Ideally, Antifa should be at 0 percent approval,” Eddie Zipperer, an assistant professor of political science at Georgia Military College, told LifeZette. “We should be very concerned about the leftists who tolerate hate as long it hates in the same direction as them. Having said that, if you lack the political acumen to score Antifa-level popularity numbers, it might be time to step aside or at least take a serious look at your tactics.”
“McConnell and Ryan would rather be loved and admired by the media than by the people who elected them,” he explained. “It’s like they’re the leaders of some weird cult of self-loathing conservatism. They use Democratic talking points to attack Trump, they play into anti-Trump media narratives, and they are clearly incapable of creating the sort of party unity that we always see from the Democrats.”
“They want to take the Republican Party and the reins of government away from Trump. They think he’d make a great puppet for them,” Zipperer continued, echoing comments made by Steve Bannon during a recent “60 Minutes” interview. “The Republican establishment is trying to nullify the 2016 election. That’s a brutal fact we have to face.”
“The problem is, playing to the Left and the tiny Never-Trump minority of the Republican Party is a losing strategy in national politics,” he said. “That’s why McCain got blown out in 2008. That’s why Romney got blown out in 2012. What they’ve accomplished by rejecting Trump is to alienate most Republicans.”
“Obviously,” added Zipperer, “Democrats are eager to see them fail, so they won’t win hearts and minds on that side. So what they’re left with is that tiny group of people who thought Jeb Bush or John Kasich would have made a great nominee in 2016. Those people are not enough to sustain anyone at the national level.”
